Raising the Stakes: The IASC Responds to IOSCO and the SEC

Abstract

This chapter deals with relations with the outside world and their impact. It shows how the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) occupied the centre stage in the International Accounting Standards Committee's (IASC) aims and deliberations between 1987 and 2000. A first phase in the relationship between the two organizations ended in a difficult period during the second half of 1994. The relationship was then set on a new footing in 1995, and a more promising phase began. The board's standards were registering very little impact in the developed, industrialized countries. The leaders felt it was essential that the board establish a closer relationship with securities market regulators, national standard setters, and major preparers. They also came to believe, with a nudge from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that real progress towards international harmonization would not occur until most of the optional treatments in the board's standards were removed.